


A Small Creature in an Infinite World

by rynling



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Family Feels, Gen, Hypothetical Backstory, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 16:58:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3454793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rynling/pseuds/rynling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Madeline does her best to create order from chaos in an unfamiliar realm, finding comfort in the eyes of her young daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Small Creature in an Infinite World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Winter_Poppy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winter_Poppy/gifts).



> Written in response to [a prompt](http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=155) posted to the [2015 Final Fantasy Kiss Battle](http://ff-exchange.dreamwidth.org/59207.html).
> 
> I took some liberties with the game's story. I'd like to think that Terra got to enjoy a few years with her parents, which is perhaps why she's able to remember Gestahl's violent intrusion into the Esper world as she recovers in Zozo. I also think it would be cool if the world beyond the Sealed Gate were larger than the tiny village where Maduin lives...

She feels so imperfect, so vulnerable. The women in her family have always had a little magic, but simple spells are nothing compared to the sweeping currents of energy that ebb and flow on this side of the Sealed Gate.

This is a world of pure will in which a powerful magic user's thoughts can fold and stitch the very fabric of reality. Beyond the border of the tiny village where she lives with her husband and daughter, there are great castles and towers stretching to the stars, which hang in a sky entirely different than the one she had once known. One day she will travel to see the hanging gardens and the twilit cities of ice that she has heard about from passing travelers, but she is still unsure of herself and hesitant to set foot outside the boundaries of the familiar.

Madeline has not always been this way. As a young woman she was fearless, but here she is so obviously an outsider. This is the realm of Espers, beings of unimaginable power who are clearly nonhuman in their customs and appearance. No two Espers look alike. Some have brilliantly colored hair, skin, and eyes, while other have wings, claws, or scales. Some are shaped like the creatures of her world: dragons, wolves, and whales. Some even seem to be inorganic and constructed of wire and stone. They speak in languages both maddeningly familiar and entirely alien, using speech, hand signs, or the pure transmission of thought. She is a quick study, but the variations of their words are endless. The long-lived Espers have had lifetimes to immerse themselves in the culture they have created, and she is so young and so ignorant.

For now, her husband and her sweet little daughter are her universe. Maduin, a journeyman adept of the three elements, has the horns and shaggy hindquarters of a ram, but his eyes are kind and his touch is gentle. He questions her endlessly about the world beyond the Sealed Gate and is fascinated by the mysteries of her body, her ten slender fingers and ten round toes. Terra is a brilliant creature, infinitely inquisitive and completely at home with the abilities she has inherited from her father. She can switch at will between appearing as a younger version of her mother and as a rose-colored sprite with her father's fur-trimmed flanks and hooves.

Madeline stands watching her on a causeway above a river whose waters sparkle with their own luminescence hundreds of feet below. Terra zips through the air, chasing a swarm of the firelizards that infest the cliff walls. The sight fills her with a combination of vertigo and envy that is not entirely unpleasant. _One day I'll cross this river too_ , Madeline thinks.

Terra's sudden shriek snaps her out of her reverie, and almost instantly her daughter has flown headlong into her arms.

"One of them bit me!" Terra wails, but there is no pain in her voice, merely an appeal for her mother's attention.

Terra's body flashes with energy, and holding her is like grasping static, but Madeline strokes her daughter's floppy ears calmly and coos that everything will be fine. Within Terra's face, pulsing with pale pink light, are her own blue eyes. Madeline smiles and kisses her daughter's forehead. Somehow, everything will be all right. All she needs is time, and she has all the time she needs in this vast and endless world.


End file.
